


Because

by Lokei



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: Spirits, Gen, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-23
Updated: 2008-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-19 04:59:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/197163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokei/pseuds/Lokei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack’s gotten pretty good at speaking Daniel.  Episode tag for “Spirits” Season 2</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because

When Daniel turned up at the exit desk, Jack wasn’t really all that surprised, but he scowled anyway, for the sake of the airman who was picking up the keys for one of the service cars.

“I’ll take the Colonel home, Airman,” Daniel said decisively, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the somewhat precarious shuffling and juggling act he was doing with a pile of books, his coat, and his own car keys.

The airman looked dubious. Jack tried not to grin. Everyone on base knew Daniel’s car was an accident waiting to happen, not unlike the good doctor himself.

“Percy, isn’t it?” Daniel continued blithely, finally freeing his keys from his coat pocket. The unfortunate airman nodded. Jack rocked back on his heels and let Daniel happen to him.

“The thing is, Percy,” Daniel said with a conspiratorial tone to his voice. “Colonel O’Neill just had to talk his way out of an alien incursion of the base. The Colonel hates having to talk his way out of universal destruction. It makes him very grumpy.”

Jack tried to look grumpy. It wasn’t actually very difficult. His arm still hurt like the blazes.

“And between you, me, and the lamppost,” Daniel continued in a stage whisper, “the Air Force just doesn’t pay you enough to have to deal with Jack in a bad mood. I’ll take him home.”

“And what do they pay you, sir?”

Jack liked this airman. He had spunk. Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to kill him later.

Daniel winked. “Hazard pay, Percy.” He plucked the keys out of the airman’s hand, put them down on the desk, and somehow managed to find a free hand under all the crap he was carrying to give Jack a nudge to the back.

Jack let them get all the way to Daniel’s car before he said, “I’m not getting in that thing, you know.”

Daniel looked at him over the top of his glasses and finished unlocking the back door to place his books carefully on the rear seat. “Then give me the keys to your truck, Jack.”

When there was no movement of the kind from Jack, Daniel rolled his eyes, hopped into his car and leaned over to open the door from the inside, letting Jack slide in with minimum adjustments to his injured arm and maximum griping. They both knew Jack wouldn’t let anyone drive his baby—and that Janet would find out if Jack drove. The woman had spies everywhere.

After a few long minutes of comfortable silence, Jack decided to get even for the ‘grumpy’ crack.

“Talking to animals, Daniel?”

Daniel’s sharp, intelligent eyes cut sideways to spear Jack mercilessly. “Shot in the safety of the briefing room behind bullet proof glass, Jack? I think that’s a record, even for SG-1.”

“At least I had my archaeologist there to clasp me to his manly bosom.”

“Hardly,” Daniel snorted. “This from the man who decided it would be a good idea to deliver a full-body hug in the gateroom in front of about three dozen SF’s and General Hammond.” It was his ‘don’t be an ass, Jack,’ tone, but Jack knew better. Those eyes were saying ‘I was worried,’ and ‘it could have been so much worse.’

“And don’t think you’re off the hook for the Spacemonkey thing. I’ll get my revenge for that when you least expect it.” Daniel continued. “Do you have any idea how many stuffed monkeys I ended up donating to children’s charities that month?”

Jack decided it was safest to assume that was a rhetorical question, and said nothing. Whenever Daniel did decide it was time to ‘get even’ for being saddled with his nom de guerre, Jack would take it with good grace. After all, Jack had broken the barriers around the untouchable Doctor Jackson. The man who winced when slapped on the back or stood as far from the center of a crowd as possible made two exceptions to the pesky no-touching thing: the people of Abydos, and Jack. And recently, Daniel had even been reaching out, just a little. In extremis, anyway—hands to shoulders, arms, checking to make sure Jack was still in one piece after the alien orb thing released him from the wall of the gateroom, or yesterday with the arrow—Daniel’s hands fluttered like moths, lifting off and alighting as if unsure of their motivation or their welcome.

They were steady now on the steering wheel as Daniel steered them expertly into the grocery store parking lot. “Figured we were driving right by,” he adjusted his glasses. “Need anything?”

That, Jack knew, was Danielspeak for ‘I’m cooking you dinner and crashing on your fold-out. If you’re nice you might get some say in what you eat.’

He cleared his throat. “Froot Loops? Orange juice.” Which meant, ‘You win. Nothing weird, please.’

Daniel’s lips twitched and he slid out of the car with an absent minded protest which got lost in the sounds of the car door closing. Jack filled in ‘Don’t know how you eat that junk’ just fine anyway and closed his eyes. God, he was tired. Dannyboy hadn’t been kidding that those ‘spirits’ of Tonane’s had completely freaked him out. Came through the gate—and the passed through the infirmary—looking like their own people, for crying out loud! How do you defend against fish-faced aliens who clap their hands and make people disappear, and look like your best pals while doing it?

It would seem that you throw Daniel Jackson at them. That boy was now two for two as far as winning over the finned and flippered set was concerned, and he was also the only person in the entire base at whom Jack was not completely steamed. He hadn’t missed the fact that Hammond had sent Daniel out of the room for the discussion of stealing as military necessity. Sure, Daniel was probably the best person to show Tonane whatever the heck it was he was showing him, but the archaeologist would have been even more vocal than Jack about the NID’s plan. Hammond might be under a lot of pressure, but at the moment he was also on Jack’s black list. Apparently, only Daniel could be trusted to stay Daniel when he was needed to be.

 _“How do I know you’re you?”_

 _A long pause, another one of those dumbfounded high-eyebrow, dropped jaw moments. “Because.”_

 _“Yeah.”_

Jack’s hands were shaking all over again, remembering just how powerless it felt not to know who was who, not to know if the next move he made would mean he vanished in a clap of lightning.

 _“How do I know you’re you?”_

 _“Because.”_

Because when the last thing you want to see is another gill-faced alien, only Daniel will bring you six of them and tell you not to shoot them. Because only Daniel could be full of exactly the right words to describe anything, anyone, any situation, except himself. Because only Daniel had the kind of faith in Jack that he could just stand there and trust his best friend to know the difference between himself and an impostor.

The car door opened behind Jack and he took in the sounds of Daniel depositing groceries without opening his eyes. He could tell Daniel was worried by the quiet way he sat in the front seat and didn’t turn on the ignition. He cracked his eyes open—yep, Daniel was cataloging his face with a close focus intensity usually reserved for Linear B script.

“Daniel,” Jack opened his eyes and Daniel leaned back, startled. Jack hid a grin.

“Jack?”

“Why didn’t you let the airman drive me home?”

Daniel looked at him for a long time, obviously considering and discarding answers like ‘you needed food,’ and ‘you needed company’ as too obvious and too embarrassing. Jack was getting very good at speaking Daniel.

Finally, Daniel’s lips quirked up in that expression that he didn’t give anyone else, the one that said the linguist could read Jack like a book.

“Because,” Daniel smiled, and Jack could read that too.

“Yeah,” he agreed. The best reasons didn’t need saying at all.


End file.
